


Our Story Goes On

by superfluouskeys



Category: PCBH, Prisoner (Cell Block H), Prisoner (TV)
Genre: 5+1 Things, F/F, Fluff and Angst, format, hi i'll never be over these two thanks for checking in!!, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-20 04:31:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13139118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/superfluouskeys/pseuds/superfluouskeys
Summary: Following her transfer to H-block, Terri Malone hears a great deal about Joan Ferguson before she meets her.  She isn't certain she agrees with the assessment."Be true to what you are, and leave room for what you might become."  Merry Christmas, Nika!  <3





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [misslestrange274](https://archiveofourown.org/users/misslestrange274/gifts).



> For anyone just stumbling onto this, I played a little fast and loose w/ canon and timelines--just want my children to be happy haha--but I hope you enjoy my nonsense!

In truth Terri is delighted by the transfer offer.  It feels like a step up in a way--different sorts of responsibilities, longer hours while they're short-staffed, and H-block is a bit notorious for wild tales of interpersonal drama that sometimes makes the rest of the prison look downright peaceful.

Terri has heard Officer Ferguson's name mentioned a few times in passing before, but she's filed it away as one of the officers who avoids the maternity ward.  Plenty of reasons for that, none more likely than the other.  But from the minute she moves her things into her new locker, it's like Ms. Ferguson is all anyone can talk about.

"Well, at least he'll be safe from Joan," someone remarks, of a new male officer assigned to D-block, and the others laugh.

Terri turns to Meg Morris and asks, "Who is Joan?"

"Joan Ferguson," Meg clarifies.  "One of our officers.  She's been out of commission for awhile."

"What did they mean?" Terri presses.

Meg's face contorts slightly.  "Perhaps I hadn't better say anything," she replies cryptically.  "It...wasn't exactly a joke in good taste.  Anyway, you'll meet her soon enough."

"Yeah, then she'll see for herself."

"I'll say she will!"

\---

"Morris and Barry are all right sometimes," Terri overhears.  "Slattery is a right bitch mostly, but none of them is anything next to the Freak."

"The Freak?"

"Ferguson.  Everyone's always trying to get rid of her but it never sticks.  Should have bloody well died last time."

"That bad?"

"Sadistic bulldyke bitch.  Stirs up trouble just for the fun of it.  You can see it in her face, she gets off on seeing people suffer."

"Dyke?  You sure?"

"Course I am--ask around if you don't believe me."

"Aw, hell, I don't want any trouble from some weirdo!"

"Then steer clear of her, why don't you."

"Well how am I supposed to do that when I've never met her?"

"Oh, you'll know her when you see her."

Terri waits until the topic shifts before she rounds the corner, stomach churning with a kind of nervous energy she can't quite place, and which has no place in her line of work.  She wonders for the first time whether she oughtn't to have stayed in maternity.

\---

"So," Terri hedges, eyes trained on a file she isn't reading.  "This Joan Ferguson character leaves quite the impression."

Joyce Barry's large, thick eyeglasses give her the impression of one perpetually aghast.  "How do you mean?"

"Well," Terri thumbs the corner of the file folder, "the prisoners call her 'The Freak.'"

Joyce makes a strangled noise that indicates Terri has somehow already overstepped.

Terri frowns.  "What, is that some sort of secret?"

"It's not something we talk about within her earshot, now, is it?" Joyce sputters.

"Well," Terri bides her time while Joyce recovers, "she isn't within earshot now."

Joyce considers her a moment, and Terri realizes with a strange kind of clarity that she's found an in at last: Joyce desperately wants to tell her everything she knows.

\---

"Don't get smart with me."  The voice is low and harsh.  It stops Terri at the threshold.  "Just answer the question, yes or no."

"Yes."

_She's not exactly the easiest person to get along with, you see_ , Joyce had told her.  _Everyone is sure she's been involved in some mystery or another, but no one can ever prove it._

"You've been charged with possession and trafficking, and you've been remanded in custody awaiting trial, is that correct?"

"Yes."

_Oh, let's see, first it was sexual harassment, then it was dealing with the women, lately it's been bashings..._

_And there's never any proof at all?_ Terri cut in.

_Sometimes one or more of the women will try to--oh, and there was that terrible incident with Heather--_

_Heather?_

_Rodgers._

_I've never heard of her._

_She didn't last very long.  She was dismissed after...well, after she conspired with the prisoners to frame Joan for rape._

"Right.  You're to hand over any valuables, to be searched and returned to you upon your release, and then strip and shower."

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?"  The woman on the white line smiles, cold and calculating, and it sends a shiver down Terri's spine.

_An officer did that?_ Terri remembers balking, remembers feeling sick.  How hadn't she heard?  _Why would she do such a thing?_

_Oh, Joan had been giving her a hard time, I suppose..._

_Yes, but that seems a bit drastic, doesn't it?_ Terri pressed.

Joyce, with her too-big glasses and her too-wide eyes, met Terri's gaze with sudden certainty.

_You haven't met Joan._

In the present, the officer handling the induction, a head taller and twice as broad as the woman who has seen fit to insult her, barely moves at all.  "Not a good way to start out your stay here, Davis," she says coolly.  Then, suddenly, so sharply even Terri jumps, "Get moving!"

Terri lingers in the door, possibly open-mouthed, when the unfamiliar officer's eyes fall to her at last.  She narrows her eyes studiously.  "Haven't you got work to do?"

Terri dares a step forward.  "I'm sorry, it's just that I don't think we've met.  I was just transferred from maternity.  Terri Malone."  She extends her hand.

The woman stares at her proffered hand just a moment too long, and Terri feels a rush of nerves so overwhelming she almost withdraws it.

_Look, all I'm saying is, watch yourself.  She's a very clever lady.  Always about ten steps ahead of everyone else.  And, well..._

_And?_

_Well, you're...young, and very pretty.  Just watch yourself, all right?_

"Joan Ferguson," she replies, not quite subdued.

Terri smiles.  "A pleasure, I'm sure.  I've already heard so much about you."

Joan frowns and withdraws her hand.  "Oh, I'm sure you have," she replies with a sneer, then rather forcefully hands Terri the clipboard and exits the room.


	2. Chapter 2

Joan Ferguson is...very strong.

As though in direct opposition to the multiple warnings Terri received, in practice Ms. Ferguson barely acknowledges her existence.  The first time they're on dining room duty together, Ms. Ferguson flat-out ignores her greeting.  Terri is working herself up to feel very offended by the slight when, seemingly out of nowhere, one prisoner stands abruptly and launches the full weight of her body at another.

Every sensible thought in Terri's mind flees her at once.  Ms. Ferguson, however, reacts as though she's expected it.  Indeed, she probably noticed the conflict escalating while Terri was busy trying to make conversation.  She strides across the room and catches the offending party like it's nothing--all but plucks her out of mid-air!--and hauls her off to solitary, still raving and fighting the whole way.

The most curious thing about it is that later on in the staff room, the other officers act--without quite saying anything outright--like Ms. Ferguson was somehow in the wrong. 

It's a strange conversation that hardly makes any sense to Terri.  Ms. Ferguson is leaning against the counter dabbing antiseptic on a few scrapes she sustained during the scuffle, and Mr. Cruikshank is laying into her like she was the assailant.

"It's the principle of the thing, Joan!" he cries.

Joan chuckles drily.  "I thought I wouldn't know the first thing about principle, _Mister_ Cruikshank."

"Damn right you wouldn't.  Did you consider for one second asking Davis why she--"

"Excuse me, Mr. Cruikshank," Terri cuts in, impulsively, not least because Joan looks like she's ready to murder him.

He turns around, mouth still agape.

"I don't mean to intrude, but I just don't understand why you're upset.  The situation would no doubt have gotten very ugly if Ms. Ferguson hadn't intervened so efficiently."

Cruikshank falters for a moment before he spits something along the lines of, "Oh, yes, we all know _Miss_ _Ferguson_ prides herself on her efficiency," and storms out.

Joan finishes cleaning the scrape on her wrist, eyeing Terri skeptically, and tosses the cotton ball in the bin with a simple, "Hm," before she pushes past Terri to make her own exit.

\---

Joan Ferguson is...unusually tall.

It's not that Terri didn't notice before, just that her brain didn't really make anything of the information.  Terri herself is of above average height, as are many of the other female officers, and in this line of work, Terri can imagine it must pay to cut an imposing figure. 

It's not until she catches sight of Joan just before a staff meeting, leaning against the counter amidst a handful of other male and female officers and still seeming to tower over them all, that Terri feels herself miss a beat, with no explanation within herself for her behaviour but for the vague and absurd thought that hangs with her: _tall_.

Joan catches her staring out of the corner of her eye and frowns subtly.  Terri ducks her head, ashamed and more than a little perplexed.

She reasons that she's just taken aback by the difference between Joan as she was described and Joan as she's been thus far.  Terri isn't sure what she was expecting, but it certainly wasn't an exhausted woman just trying to do her job when her coworkers seem determined to dislike her.

Once Joan tries to voice an opinion, and is shut down before she's finished speaking.  She mutters something to the offending party, Mr. Cruikshank again, and storms out, and when she's gone, the others laugh derisively and remark what a joy it is to have Attila the Hun back amongst their ranks.

Terri's shift has ended with the meeting, and she can't decide whether she's relieved to be off the following day.  Strange how a new position in the same old place is rearranging her world so quickly.

When she goes to sign out, she finds Joan filing angrily behind the reception desk.  She wants to say something, feels it pooling in her gut and caught in the back of her throat, but can't imagine how to put words to the feeling.

"Have a good night, Ms. Ferguson," she says in the end.

Joan looks up, as though caught off guard, and regards Terri with the usual suspicion.  "Hm," she utters simply, and Terri is sure that will be all she gets, but just as she's turned her back, Joan adds.  "Same to you, Ms. Malone."

\---

Joan Ferguson has a very nice smile.

Perhaps it's the rarity of its occurrence that catches Terri so off her guard.  After she's been back awhile she laughs sometimes, smirks almost consistently, but it's an intimidating, mocking sort of expression, an indicator that she is unimpressed and unconcerned.  When she's at rest and not on under unwarranted scrutiny from the other officers, she remains withdrawn and almost stoic.

It's a bit of an adjustment, but for the most part Terri is glad of the longer hours available to her in the new position.  She'd like to put away a bit of money, certainly, and the longer she can spend away from her flatmates, the better.  Last night was particularly dreadful.  One of them had a screaming fight with her boyfriend for a few hours, and then the other one joined in yelling at her to stop yelling, and by the time they quieted down it was nearly time for Terri to get ready to leave for the prison.

There's no one she can really talk to about it, either.  Her parents would just tell her to move home, and her coworkers always seem to have much bigger problems.  So she squeezes her eyes closed against the morning chill, breathes deeply, and sets off for the staff room to down a cup of coffee or three before her shift begins.

Somewhere in the middle of her second cup, she hears approaching footsteps followed by a subdued, "Good morning."

Terri looks up to offer a smile.  "Good morning, Ms. Ferguson.  How was your night?"

Joan quirks an eyebrow and hesitates a moment, but when she responds, Terri gets much more than the curt answer she was expecting.  "Nothing out of the ordinary.  Barry is intolerable at night.  Won't stop talking for anything."

Terri laughs.  "She's quite the gossip."

Joan scoffs.  "Figured that out already, did you?"

"Oh, yes, I only had to pry for a second or two and I got more dirt than I bargained for."

"Most of it rubbish, I daresay."

"Probably," Terri agrees, and turns over her shoulder to look at Joan as she collects her things.  "But it's interesting to know what people think, isn't it, even if they've got it all wrong?"

Joan pauses a moment and turns around to meet Terri's gaze.  "Not the word I'd use," she replies flatly.  She loops her bag over her shoulder and closes her locker, then, to Terri's immense surprise, she smiles, ostensibly quite genuinely. 

"Anyway, I'm off at last," says Joan, and then, so quick Terri is sure she's imagined it, Joan winks at her.  "Good luck, Ms. Malone."


	3. Chapter 3

Joan is really very pleasant to talk to.

Not right on the surface, perhaps, but Terri sees the problem there rather quickly.  Everyone seems to take the frank, abrupt manner in which she speaks as some sort of personal affront.  To be certain, sometimes she is deliberately provocative, as Terri was told, but half the time all she has to do is state a simple fact, and any number of the other officers are at her throat.

In fact, as far as Terri can tell, no one in H-block is particularly nice to Joan at all--at least, not without some heavy condescension, or self-righteousness, or a very obvious ulterior motive.  Terri begins to think it's no wonder she's so consistently suspicious.

It's not such a big leap to make.  After all, doesn't everyone want to feel as though someone has her back?  Still, once Terri realizes it, she finds herself with a shockingly fast friend.

And truly--Joan is fascinating to talk to.  She has strong opinions on almost everything, while Terri falls far more in the realm of wishy-washy on most issues.  She speaks sharply and with conviction, but she's not nearly as contentious as the other officers would have Terri believe.  She's had a long and markedly difficult career in corrections, and Terri has never been the sort of person to stick to any situation longer than it amuses her.

One day Terri catches Joan in the staff room as they're both leaving, Terri for the day and Joan for the break in a split shift, and Terri asks, impulsively, whether Joan has any plans for lunch.

Joan hesitates for little more than an instant, a barely-perceptible hitch as her hand grasps the strap of her bag and she turns her gaze to Terri.  "No, not really.  Why?"

Terri feels suddenly awkward under the intensity of her gaze, but presses onward.  "Well, I thought I might go downtown for a bit," she shrugs.  "All the shops will have put out Christmas decorations by now, and I wondered if you might like to come with me."

Joan scoffs.  "It'll be packed with tourists."

Terri smiles.  "What, are you afraid they'll trample you?"

Joan's frown deepens, but Terri chooses to remain undeterred. 

"Come on," she reaches for Joan's arm, and is surprised to meet with no resistance.  "A change of pace is good for the soul."

Joan doesn't protest further--indeed, she doesn't say anything at all, only follows Terri out of Wentworth with a look about her that Terri couldn't begin to decipher if she tried.

She doesn't talk much at lunch, either, and Terri is left to wonder at how different she looks outside the walls of Wentworth, even with the better part of her uniform disguised only by an unseasonable sweater she's thrown over it.

"Aren't you warm?" Terri wonders.

"Have you ever gone to lunch in your uniform?" Joan counters.  "I get enough unpleasant looks as it is."

"What do you mean by that?"

Joan inclines her head as though to say, _oh, come on_ , and when faced with Terri's unmitigated befuddlement, she indicates a couple the next table over who are intermittently giving them pointed looks and whispering.

Terri turns to look at them in shock, subtlety be damned, but they don't even have the decency to look ashamed.

Joan has gone back to enjoying her sandwich as though she hadn't even noticed them in the first place, but Terri finds she's suddenly lost her appetite.

The colourful lights strung about the city streets are quick to lift her spirits, however.  "Mummy loves Christmas decorations," Terri tells Joan as they walk.  "Used to drive the neighbours mad when I was a kid."

"Used to?" Joan glances down at her.  "Did they come round, or move?"

Terri laughs, more than a little shocked that Joan has any sense of humour that doesn't err on the side of dark and ever-so-slightly sadistic.  "A little of both, I think," she concedes.

"Your parents live nearby?" Joan wonders.

"No," Terri sighs.  "This is the first holiday I won't be able to go and see them, actually, what with the new job responsibilities."  She doesn't add that this was more by design than she'd care to admit.

"You're close with them, then," says Joan.

Terri nods, eyes trained on the lights strung above them.  "And you?  Are you close with your parents?"

Joan is silent a moment too long, and the strange pause distracts Terri from her own sudden melancholy long enough to look up to investigate. 

But Joan's expression doesn't give much away.  "Not really," she replies at last.  And if Terri was expecting her to elaborate, well, then she would have been sorely disappointed.

Terri looks away, unsure of how to proceed now that she seems to have fouled this up so completely and, improbably, lands upon something so delightful it buoys her spirits afresh.  "Oh, look!" she exclaims, and, with purposeful abandon, she grabs Joan's arm and pulls her along.

The puppies in the store window have little red and green ribbons tied atop their ears.  Two of them are busy playing with one another, but the third catches sight of Joan and Terri in the window and bounds towards them, tail wagging so voraciously it shakes his whole little body.

Terri laughs and wiggles her fingers at the puppy, and before she can even think to check on her travel companion, Joan emits a strange, strangled little noise that twists Terri's heart.

"Joan?"

But when Terri looks up, Joan is smiling, unreservedly, so wide it wrinkles her eyes and dimples her cheeks, and Terri is so entranced by the sight that she can think of nothing to do and nothing to say.  She stands frozen in time, watching Joan smile at puppies in a store window, and finds that the moment suits her so perfectly she's loath to leave it behind.

At last Joan's radiant smile falters, and Terri has the good sense to turn her attention back to the puppies in the window.

"I miss having a dog," Joan confesses, so quietly Terri almost doesn't hear her over the din from the street.

"Why don't you have one?" Terri wonders.

Another long silence follows.  Terri wonders whether she'll ever grow accustomed to the strange pattern of their conversations.  Joan is so forthright and assertive at work, so sure and strong when speaking on nearly any matter, but any question about her personal life is met at worst with barbs so specific it's like she's been saving them, and at best with this strange, troubled silence, followed, if she's lucky, by a few halting words that don't really say very much, but feel nevertheless pointed, like a hand tentatively extended.

"It's dangerous," says Joan at last, "having things you care about."

A few scattered thoughts cross Terri's mind, about prisoners calling her a freak and fellow officers making jokes at her expense, about Joyce Barry being frightened of her and Dennis Cruikshank treating her like an errant child, about the way she acts around the others and the way she acts around Terri, but it's a fair bit more than Terri knows how to process in the moment, and so she says, "I'm sorry, Joan, I swear I was only hoping to brighten your spirits, not to upset you."

Joan looks at her, surprised.  "You haven't upset me, Terri," she says, with uncharacteristic gentleness.  "I'm sure I ought to be the one apologizing.  I'm afraid I'm not much used to socializing."

"So you haven't had a terrible time?" Terri presses.  "You won't spend the rest of our collective careers avoiding me?"

"Hardly."  Joan scoffs, and looks away in a vain effort to hide another genuine smile.  Terri's heart leaps unhelpfully.  "In fact, I've..." Joan glances back at her, almost hesitant "had a very nice time.  Certainly not the worst way to spend a split shift."

Terri beams.  She grabs Joan's arm to lead her further along the street, and everything after that seems to happen in less than an instant.

Terri's hands close around Joan's forearm and bicep, and, still heady with what from Joan amounts to effusive praise, she looks up to pay Joan a compliment related to the muscle she's so skillfully concealed beneath an ill-fitted shirt.  When Terri locks eyes with Joan, Joan affords her a very small, very surprised little smile that sets Terri's heart aflutter.  Then someone bumps her shoulder a little too hard to be an accident and she falls hard against Joan.

Terri whirls around to set eyes upon the offending party, affronted and expecting an apology, but is greeted by a man and woman, walking arm in arm, glaring pointedly at her as they pass.

Terri watches them a moment, baffled and hurt, and only looks away when she feels Joan's hands curling awkwardly away from her, not quite leaving her unsupported, but no longer holding on.

She looks back to Joan and finds the secret smile a distant memory.  Joan doesn't quite meet her gaze, but frowns at some imagined point just over Terri's shoulder, with a kind of resignation Terri has never witnessed in her.


	4. Chapter 4

At first Terri is sure it's just the change in her schedule.

Terri was transferred to H-block to relieve their staffing problems--namely, she later realized, that Joan was still on the mend from surgery and no one was willing to admit the sheer quantity of work she'd been able to shoulder before the multiple incidents that took her out of commission.  Terri doesn't mind working odd hours or weekends and holidays--it's not as though she has anything better to do, and the less she's left alone with her thoughts, the better--but sleeping or working through all the hours of sunlight in a day several days in a row leaves her feeling strange and off-balance, and seems to give her mind leave to catch on all sorts of niggling little details that would seem inconsequential under normal circumstances.

It's not entirely that she can't visit her parents for Christmas.  Truthfully she knows she could if she wanted to, and it's the knowing that bothers her.  She loves her parents.  She loves Christmas with her parents.  She wants to see them, only...

Only they'll just spend the whole night talking about how Terri ought to have gone into medicine, or something respectable, about how Terri oughtn't to work at the prison so much if she insists on working there at all, how she ought to be out meeting people her own age, making friends, dating...

And they'll make snide comments like the ones they made when Terri got the job in maternity, about how surely Terri isn't like a normal prison officer, how none of them are any better than the criminals they mind, bashings, murders, deviants...

It's not exactly that Joan is avoiding her.  Not directly.  Not noticeably.  Perhaps Terri is imagining it.  Joan isn't unpleasant or even short with her when they speak, it's just that they don't.  Their schedules don't match up, or Joan is busy, or she's distracted, or it's all three at once, and Terri supposes it's normal to miss someone, but it's different than that.  There's something more to it that Terri can't name.

It hasn't even been going on very long.  A couple of weeks, and everyone's schedules will even out after the holidays. 

"How are you settling in, Miss Malone?" Dennis Cruikshank asks her one night, as she's finishing up a particularly trying double shift.

"Oh, all right, thanks," says Terri with forced lightness.  "Just a bit tired."

Mr. Cruikshank stirs his tea like he's working up to something, and Terri gets the strangest feeling she knows what's coming.  "Joan isn't giving you any trouble, is she?  She can be...very hard on new officers."

 _Like Heather Rodgers?_ Terri narrowly avoids snapping.  "No, actually," she says instead.  "We get on quite well."  She thinks.  She hopes.  Perhaps wishes.

Mr. Cruikshank responds with the strangled kind of sound that means he has more to say and is pretending at discretion.  "She hasn't, ah...put any pressure on you, has she?"

Terri closes her locker with a bit more force than is strictly necessary.  "I'm sure I don't know what you mean."

"Well, I just mean, there are some...unsavoury rumours about her, and you're a pretty girl, and Joan isn't exactly known for her friendly disposition--"

Terri whirls around.  "You know, I'm getting a little fed up with the way you all talk about her like she's some kind of monster!  I happen to think she's very nice, and perhaps you would, too, if you bothered to give her a real chance.  Good evening, Mr. Cruikshank."

It's nearly midnight by the time she gets home, and she's sure she'll collapse in her work clothes, but sleep eludes her.  She's got this awful churning sensation in the pit of her stomach--has since she snapped at Mr. Cruikshank--and she hasn't any idea what to make of it.

She puts on a kettle and proceeds to pace the tiny kitchen.  Perhaps the thing she's been avoiding putting too much thought into has finally caught up with her--what the H-block officers were joking about on her first day, what the prisoners were saying around the corner, what Joyce phrased as a personal warning, what the people downtown were inferring, and finally, what Mr. Cruikshank flat-out suggested--that Joan might only be friendly with Terri because she thinks--because she wants--

The nerve of all of them, really!  What information are they going on, anyway?  Just making things up out of thin air?  Just because she's not married and presents herself in a certain way, she's some sort of...of evil lesbian, waiting to prey on the young, unsuspecting officer?

And so what if she is?  If she were?  How is that any of their business?  How is it any of Terri's business, for that matter?  She ought to just forget it.  Forget everything she knows, forget everything she thinks, and just go back to living her life.  The holidays will pass uneventfully, and she won't have to tell well-meaning relatives that no, she doesn't have a boyfriend and she doesn't want one right now, and her schedule will sort itself out, and Joan probably isn't ignoring her, and there's no good reason for her to be so focused on Joan, anyway, so she might as well just leave it alone!

The kettle whistles and Terri startles.

Why can't she just leave it alone?

Impulsively, she crosses the room and picks up the phone.  She holds the receiver with both hands for a minute, then slams it back down and turns away.

She's trembling.  She doesn't even know why.

She turns back to the phone, picks it up, and dials.

"Hello?"

Words catch in her throat.

"Hello?" Harsher now.

"I'm so sorry to bother you," Terri half-sobs, all in a rush.

A heavy kind of silence, followed by, "No, it's all right.  I wasn't asleep.  What's the matter?'

Terri inhales, thinks of the words she wants to say, and feels the peculiar urge to cry.

"Terri?"  Softer now.  Concerned, and for what, exactly?

"I'm...god, I'm so sorry to bother you, Joan, it's silly!"  But she's crying now, and it's obvious in the tremor of her voice, and she doesn't quite catch the sniffle that follows her feeble attempt at laughter.

"Terri, tell me what's wrong," Joan demands, almost fiercely, but Terri knows by now--is pretty sure, at least--that Joan's ire isn't directed at her, but at whatever is upsetting her.  Silly, really, when it's...

"I just..." Terri tries again at the words she couldn't bear to say a moment prior, and, resigned to the fact that she's already crying, manages to summon the courage to speak this time.  "It's been a long week, and I just needed...I mean, I wanted to hear your voice, Joan, that's all.  I'm sorry."

Joan is quiet for what feels like a long time, and Terri feels even more collossally stupid than before.  "I don't understand, Terri," she says at last.  "What's the matter?  Do you need something?  Do you want...do you want me to...I don't know, come over, or something?"

She does.  And she doesn't.

Suppose she did drag Joan over here--what then?  Would she know any more what she means to say?  Would she be any more ready to say it?

"God, I'm sorry I've worried you for nothing, Joan.  Just...please, forget this ever happened.  I'll talk to you tomorrow, all right?"

"But--"  Joan sighs, swallows her protest.  "Fine, all right, Terri.  But, you know, if there is anything you need--"

Terri pushes her fist against her lips for a moment to stay another senseless sob.  She can't control the telltale sniffle.  "Thank you, Joan.  I'm sorry.  Good night."

\---

Terri calls in sick to work, and doesn't answer the phone for the rest of the morning.  She finds something mindless to watch on the television and does her best to ignore her train of thought entirely.  In the afternoon, Joan shows up at her door proffering a bottle of wine and a bag of takeaway.

That Terri doesn't burst into tears afresh is honestly a credit to her self-restraint.

"Oh, Joan!" she effuses instead, but can't help or hide the way she hesitates just shy of squeezing Joan's arm as she ushers her inside.

Joan notices.  Terri's heart sinks.

"I'm...sorry again for worrying you last night," Terri begins, with palpable awkwardness.

Joan scoffs.  "Nonsense.  I'm glad you're all right.  Although phoning Wentworth only to be told you'd called in sick did little to ease my concern."

Terri's breath hitches.  "You...called for me?"

Joan sets down the bag and the bottle, frowning.  "Shouldn't I have?"

It's a new feeling then, entirely different from the anxious, churning one that caused all the trouble in the first place, but this one is a bit more familiar to her.  A giddy, tingling warmth takes root in her chest and spreads outward when she allows herself to smile, and Terri feels it from her heart to her fingertips and all the way down to her toes.

"No, it's...it was sweet of you, that's all."

Joan scoffs.  "Hardly," she says, and sets about locating a corkscrew and some glasses.  "Now, do you care to tell me what's going on?"

Terri pushes her hair out of her face with a heavy sigh.  "It seems so stupid now," which is not exactly a lie.  It seemed stupid at the time, too, but that doesn't mean the feeling has faded.  "I don't know, it was just a bad end to a long week.  I sort of snapped at Mr. Cruikshank."

Joan lets out a surprised little laugh.  "Good on you," she offers a glass to Terri and raises hers in a toast.  "What did he say to set you off?"

Terri takes a sip of the wine and relishes its warmth a moment.  "Will you think me mad if I say I want to tell you, but I also don't want to tell you at all?"

Joan quirks an eyebrow.  "A bit, yeah."

Terri sighs and shakes her head.  "He said something...well, not exactly cruel about you, but it's more the way he...sorry, I mean, I'm sure you know, but he's always making cruel jokes at your expense, and it just really upset me, because you've been perfectly lovely to me, and he made it seem like..." she squeezes her eyes closed, doesn't want to say it, doesn't want to think it, but the silence is unbearable, and somehow Terri realizes that not finishing the sentence would be worse than finishing it.  "Like something dirty," she says at last, and can't quite bring herself to look up at Joan.

Joan responds with a small huff of derision and a quiet, "He would, wouldn't he."

Terri returns her attention to her wine glass.  "I feel a bit badly for yelling at him, but it's...well, it's not just him, and I'd had enough, frankly."

Joan is quiet for a moment, and when she speaks there's that uncharacteristic gentleness in her voice again, and it startles Terri into meeting her gaze.  "You don't need to defend me, Terri."

"I know that, but..." Terri shrugs, and fidgets with her collar.  "It isn't right, the way they talk about you.  It's not as though any of them are up for sainthood."

Joan smiles, and Terri can't help but to return it.  "True enough," she says, and then, after a moment's stillness, averts her eyes to some imagined point on the bare kitchen wall, as though embarrassed.  "It is...nice, knowing someone...I don't know, cares enough to stand up for me."

Terri decides then that it doesn't matter what Joan is or isn't.  She knows at the very least that what Mr. Cruikshank said isn't true, and that Joan isn't upset with her for some mysterious reason, and that avoiding one holiday with her family isn't the end of the world.  The rest, she's sure, will work itself out.


	5. Chapter 5

Joan forgives her.

It takes awhile, of course, of walking on eggshells around one another and little fights made up of things they ought to have said a long time ago, but one day Joan comes home from work and calls out Terri's name like she used to, and Terri jumps up to meet her, and Joan smiles and holds out an arm when she sees Terri, and instead of allowing herself to be led, she takes Joan by the arms and presses her against the door to kiss her.

She feels it then, in the little noise of delighted surprise and the way Joan's fingers curl into the fabric of Terri's oversized shirt to pull her closer.  Joan forgives her.

Terri's parents don't come around.  Mostly she learns to live with it, even dares to think she's moved past it, but when the holidays roll around again the pain of their rejection washes over her anew.  She thinks about how desperate she was to move out from under their well-meaning, overbearing eyes, how sure she was that missing just one holiday with them would be good for her, how dreadful she was to Joan when Joan tried to warn her not to tell them, and how sure she was that they'd come around, perhaps around the holidays, when most people get a little sentimental.

But the season is upon them, and the Christmas decorations are going up all over downtown, and there's no call, no visit, no letter, and Terri realizes that perhaps she never quite let go of the hope that they might change their minds, that their daughter might eventually prove more important to them than some nameless, faceless idea about how a life ought to be led.

"Can I ask you something, Joan?" she wonders one evening.

Joan looks up from her book.  "I'll have you know that leading with that line is immediately suspect."

"I know, I'm sorry, it's just...did your parents know?  About you being a lesbian?"

"This wouldn't be a pointed line of questioning, would it?" Joan counters.

Terri sighs.  "Perhaps, a bit."

Joan closes her book and thinks for a moment, eyes trained on one corner of the television, not really watching.  "In a manner of speaking, I suppose," she says at last.  "People have always seemed to know about me without any sort of evidence, even when I was younger.  It's true, so I can't exactly be offended, but I've never understood what it is they think they see."

She sets her book aside and eyes the end table, where a bottle of what she described as her father's favourite whiskey sits.  Terri watches her contemplate it, sees her in the process of making the decision to stand and pour herself a drink.  Joan is always so deliberate.

"Anyway," she continues, "some kid at school started a nasty rumour when I was twelve or so, I think, and my parents got wind of it.  My mum threw a fit," she laughs mirthlessly.  "Beat me up, didn't even bother to ask if it was true.  My father just sort of...ignored it."

She pours a drink and offers one to Terri. 

"My brothers knew.  They were kind enough to wait until I actually told them to stop speaking to me.  I'm sure they told Father, but he never said anything, not until..." she considers the chair where she was reading, then considers Terri a moment before coming to join her on the sofa.  "Well," she says as she sits, "when he found out he was dying, he tried to make amends."

"Tried?" Terri echoes.

"Well, there was never anything to forgive, of course," says Joan.  "He was my father.  But..."

"But?"

Joan looks up, looks away again.  "I've always thought when it comes down to it, you're there when someone needs you, or you're not," she says quietly.  "And you can't exactly make up for that with words."

Terri swings her legs up onto the sofa and lays her head on Joan's shoulder.  "I'm sorry, Joan."

Joan wraps an arm about her shoulders and kisses her temple.  "You're upset about your parents?" she guesses.

Terri closes her eyes.  "I thought I'd moved past it."

Joan chuckles.  "Course you haven't.  It's been, what, a few months?  I've got about two decades on you and I still haven't gotten over all my family's nonsense."

"Thanks, that's very comforting."

"Yes, I'm often described that way."

Terri groans and buries her face in Joan's shoulder.

"Come on," Joan rubs her arm and holds her tighter.  "It hasn't even been a year.  They might come round yet."

"And if they don't?" Terri presses.

"Then they don't."  Joan kisses Terri's forehead again, and before Terri can protest, she adds, "Don't you think you're worth a bit more than someone else's opinion of you?"

Terri looks up, more desperate than affronted.  "But they're my parents!" she pleads, as though that somehow changes the answer, because it ought to mean something--it should!

Joan cradles Terri's cheek in her hand.  "They're people," she says.  "People make mistakes.  They get all...wrapped up in themselves, and they don't see what they're doing."

Terri sighs and covers Joan's hand with hers.  "Now that one definitely felt pointed."

Joan chuckles again, and together they settle back into the sofa.  "Oh, come on, we're all guilty of it."

"You know, people have you so wrong, Joan," says Terri suddenly, long before she feels the thought has fully formed.

Joan scoffs, but it's a decidedly light-hearted sound.  "I've always thought so," she says pleasantly, "but then again, I am a bit biased."

Nevertheless, Terri earns another kiss on the forehead, somehow both softer and weightier than the ones that came before, and she can't help but to raise her head to kiss Joan properly on the lips before they settle back into a comfortable silence.

There's some American Christmas movie playing on the television, one where it snows and everyone looks delighted.  Terri hasn't been paying attention to the plot, but bearing witness to their happiness still gives her the curious urge to cry.


	6. Chapter 6

Sometimes Joan's life feels like one catastrophe after another.  She wonders vaguely whether it's always been this way, and how the constant struggle hasn't exhausted her before now.

The answer comes to her early on the morning of her forty-sixth birthday.  She wakes with a start before the sun is up, casts a hand to her side with a knowing sort of dread to find Terri missing, and springs to her feet, enraged and hurt in the way of one not fully awake, like the emotions are too much for her, a physical ache just to feel them.

She staggers down the hall, vision still bleary, warring with the certainty that Terri has left her and the absurdity of the certainty, but it's exactly how it was before.  Everything seemed fine, and then suddenly Terri looked at her with disgust.  Terri was here, and then she was gone, and Joan was left to wonder why she would ever, ever be so stupid as to let her guard down when she knew very well her life was nothing but one catastrophe after another.

She lands heavily on the doorframe to the kitchen, squinting against the light.

"Oh, Joan, you're terrible!" Terri cries, and Joan feels like she's been stabbed, but the tone is all wrong, and Terri is still here, and there's something--

"You're the most difficult person to surprise, do you know that?"

Joan blinks a few times until her vision focuses, pushes past the hurt she feels to assess the circumstances.  Terri is still here, and some of her things are still strewn haphazardly about the living room, and she's...making breakfast.

Terri folds her arms, but the set of her lips indicates she's...well, it's like she's teasing.  "Well, happy birthday," she says, with mock-annoyance.

Joan blinks again, struggles not to stare in disbelief.

Terri inclines her head studiously, and the smile she's been keeping in check begins to overtake her features.  "Here, I'll help: gee, Terri, thanks a lot, how nice of you!"

Joan thinks she says something, or tries to, but all that comes out is a strangled syllable.  She steps forward, or perhaps she staggers, and somewhere inside she knows she looks like an idiot, but she can't pull herself together, doesn't even know where to begin.

"My god, Joan, if you're this worked up over breakfast, I think I'll have to call a medic when I give you your present."

Terri holds out her hands and Joan finally gathers the gumption to walk into her waiting arms and kiss her passionately.  Terri wraps her arms about Joan's shoulders and laughs against her lips.  "Stop, I'll burn the food!" she protests, but she leans in for one more kiss before she pushes Joan away.

Joan doesn't quite let her go, and trails her back into the kitchen still holding onto her hand.  "Terri," she manages at last.

Terri presses a kiss to Joan's hand before she shakes it off to arrange their plates.

"Thank you," says Joan.  "I can't remember the last time I had a pleasant birthday."

"How dare you!" Terri teases.  "We spent your last birthday together, too, only I didn't know it at the time."

"You called me at two in the morning crying because Cruikshank suggested I might have a crush on you!" Joan counters, but Terri's high spirits are catching, and they're both laughing now. 

"It wasn't that!" says Terri as she offers Joan a plate.  "He was acting like you were only being nice to me because you wanted something.  Anyway, it still turned into a happy memory.  It was sweet of you to worry about me."

"A happy memory I wish I'd witnessed," says Joan.  "It would be sweet of anyone to put Cruikshank in his place once in awhile."

The food is predictably delicious, and as the conversation continues along its usual courses, Joan does her best to release the tension she's been hanging onto.  Terri hasn't left her.  Terri isn't planning on leaving her.  Terri wanted to surprise her for her birthday, something no one has done in her entire life.

Sometimes Joan's life feels like one catastrophe after another, and when something good happens, it seems so utterly impossible to her that she doesn't know how to react.

"Joan?"

"Hm?"

"I asked you what time you planned to be home tonight.  If you ruin another surprise I assure you I'll be very upset."

Joan forces a little laugh, but there's nothing she can do for the image that crosses her mind, of the flurry of unpleasant surprises she's come home to in the past.  Terri's parents with their searching eyes and stilted conversation, Terri in their bed with that man, and finally...

"No later than eight, I should hope," says Joan, firmly pushing the unwelcome memories to the back of her mind.

"I don't see why you're working at all--couldn't you have taken the day off?"

Another unwelcome memory: Shane asking to take the day off from the school he never went to.  "Why is everyone so obsessed with taking time off?" Joan scoffs.  "The world doesn't just stop turning on birthdays and holidays, you know."

Terri shoves her shoulder gently.  "All right, all right, it was only a suggestion.  Anyway, I've got the day off, so I'll have something for us when you get home.  Is there anyone else you'd like to invite round?"

Joan balks.  "When have I ever wanted to invite anyone over?"

Terri tries unsuccessfully to bite back a grin.  "Don't look so offended, I thought you'd been keeping all sorts of friends from me.  There was that Taylor woman who came by..."

Joan nearly chokes on her coffee.  "She was...not exactly a friend."

Terri looks up with wide-eyed delight.  "I knew it!  She seemed very displeased to see me!  And she told me not to tell you she'd been by at all."

"Some confidante you are," Joan retorts weakly.

"And what about that Andrew fellow?"

Joan scrunches up her face.  "God, no thank you!  He was very pleasant company when I was unbearably lonely, and then he had the gall to try and kiss me!"

"Oh, dear!" Terri cries, but her delight is unmitigated.  "I hope you didn't hurt him too badly!"

"Your concern is touching," Joan replies flatly, and returns her attention to her coffee.

Work is surprisingly endurable--no major catastrophes, at least--though Joan is always more than a little put out when her coworkers act like her pleasant mood is some kind of unknowable miracle.  Still,  Meg Morris has deigned to treat her like a human of late, and Joan feels rather badly for any person disturbed enough to find Dennis Cruikshank attractive, and so when Meg says, "You're in a good mood today, Joan.  Exciting plans for the evening?" Joan elects to indulge the conversation in earnest.

"Yes, actually," she says, hesitantly.  "It's, uh...my birthday.  And, uh...Terri has a dinner planned."

"Oh, I had no idea--happy birthday, Joan!" says Meg.  "And I'm glad to hear you and Terri have made up after all.  You always seemed like a good match."

Joan looks up, shocked to find herself smiling at Meg Morris, of all people, and she wonders whether it really can be true, that they've made up after all, as Meg puts it.

Joan isn't accustomed to harbouring complicated feelings for anyone.  She's loved a handful of people in her life, and she did so wholeheartedly, perhaps at least partially by aggressively ignoring their faults.  She's hated a great number of people, and she's done it more or less consistently.  Indeed, the handful of times she's tried to be pleasant to Meg, she's been met with needless hostility, and she's mostly chalked up the kindness Meg showed her when Terri left her to Meg's self-righteous attachment to her idea of herself as a good person.

To have loved someone, to have been hurt, to have hated someone, and then to try to make amends, and to succeed?  This is unheard of.  Unbelievable.  And it doesn't feel like it can be real.

"Yeah," says Joan at last.  She nods slowly, perhaps only to herself.  "Yeah, I suppose so.  Thank you."

On the ride home, she thinks about all the unpleasant memories that cloud her mind, numbed but never quite dealt with.  She thinks of the way her mother raged at her, the way her father ignored her pain, the countless little mockeries and enormous insults she's taken in stride.  She thinks of how badly she wanted Audrey, and how miserable and dirty she felt for daring to want.  She thinks of how badly she wanted Terri, and how dreadful it is to want anyone, how certain she was, somehow simultaneously, that Terri couldn't possibly have any interest in her, and that inexplicably, she did, anyway.

She thinks about how she complained about Terri to Andrew, and how she didn't correct him when he assumed Terri was a man, how she was glad he hadn't assumed what everyone always did, not even fully realizing the extent of what he'd assumed instead until his hands and his face and his body were all quite suddenly too close, and she had to fight the urge to break his nose.

She remembers how frightened she was when her mind was failing her, how certain she was that there was nothing left in the world for her, no one who would miss her if she didn't come through the surgery, and plenty of people who would be relieved to be rid of her so completely.

 _Be true to what you are_ , Sister Selby had said to her.  _And leave room for what you might become._

She closes the taxi door and stands on her front lawn a moment, and thinks about how hard it was to readjust to coming home to nothing after Terri left.  She lived alone for half her life before Terri came along, and after a few short months, it was like she'd forgotten how it felt.  All the clutter and the arguments and the betrayal were as nothing to her.  If not for her pride she'd have taken Terri back in an instant.

Perhaps that's why she didn't.  Before the mess with Andrew, there was a dreadful time when Joan thought she might do anything to stop feeling so lonely.  It was the reason she'd blithely ignored his flirting and gone out with him, the reason she'd accepted Terri's betrayal and hung on regardless, and the reason she'd very nearly given up everything to move across the country and fill some bizarre role as a proper mother and daughter when her father had suggested it.

It would be foolish to think Joan had moved past all that so quickly, particularly just because of a fortuitous turn of events, but she prefers to believe she's making a start.  Sometimes Joan's life feels like one catastrophe after another, and she wonders vaguely how the constant struggle has never exhausted her before now.  To be certain, the thought of losing Terri again still frightens her, but perhaps it isn't such a bad thing to have something she's afraid of losing.

Terri opens the front door.  "Are you all right, Joan?  I heard the car pull up awhile ago...have you just been standing out here?"

Joan breathes deeply.  "Fine, sorry.  Just...thinking."

"Well, come in, why don't you!"

Joan considers Terri a moment, standing in the doorway like she never left, or perhaps like she never wanted to.  She closes her eyes a moment, takes in another deep breath, and nods before she concedes.  It's a decision in itself, to move forward despite her lasting fear, to be true to herself, and to leave room for what she might become.

Once the door is closed behind them, Terri takes Joan's hands, kisses her, and then pulls her into the living room and practically shoves her towards a brown box sitting on the table.  "Come on, I can hardly wait any longer!" she's saying.  "I hope you like it."

Really, it's all a bit too much to take in, a birthday so utterly disparate from every other such day she can remember.  She teased Terri about it earlier, but in truth she'd thought the last one beyond compare just because she had someone to share it with.

She pulls open the tape on the box, and a sob hits her like a physical force.  It's a little bit of nausea, and an old melancholy she can never quite shake, but overwhelmingly, it's joy that stirs her to tears.  The puppy, a little black and brown thing that looks to be some kind of mutt, wags its tail and grunts happily when Joan picks it up.

Vaguely she's aware of Terri's arms about her shoulders, Terri saying, "Oh, Joan, don't cry!  I'm sorry, is it right?"

But Joan can't help herself, can't even pretend at composure.  She buries her face in the puppy's downy fur and weeps for a moment with abandon, for all she's lost, for all she's never had, and for all she seems, impossibly, to have found.

"I saw her in a shelter a couple of weeks ago," Terri continues.  "I just kept thinking about how you said you missed having a dog, and I know you said it's dangerous having things you care about, too, but...but, oh, Joan, isn't that what makes life worth living?"

The puppy wriggles around to lick Joan's face, a befuddled attempt to comfort her, and Joan laughs suddenly, almost painfully.  "I'm sorry, Terri, she's..." Joan's voice cracks, and she swallows a fresh sob.  She shifts so she can wrap an arm about Terri.  "She's perfect.  This whole day has been...  Well, it hardly seems possible."

Terri beams up at her, and in reaching up to wipe the tears from her cheeks, she attracts the puppy's attention to herself.  Joan hands the dog over so she can wrap her arms about Terri properly, and kisses her head and her cheek repeatedly until Terri laughs and leans back for a proper kiss.

When they break apart, Terri doesn't right herself.  She leans back and cranes her neck to look up at Joan, with heavy-lidded eyes that somehow always seem to sparkle, and she says, "We're gonna be all right, yeah?"

Joan squeezes Terri more tightly against her, and the puppy makes happy little grunting noises that set them both off laughing, but neither can quite bring herself to look away from the other.

"Yeah," says Joan.  "I think so."


End file.
